It simply must be that the conservative media wake up in the morning thinking, "What can I do today to attack liberals?"

Catherine Sepps, who writes a column called From The Left Coast for National Online Review, and maintains a blog at Cathy's World, wrote a piece about a new A&E docudrama Ike, Countdown to D-Day, which is due to air on Monday, Memorial Day.

Instead of keeping her comments to the film (and comparison to Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, which she seems to not like), she just had to make swipes at liberals. Speaking of a scene in which Eisenhower (Tom Selleck) "pays a cheerful, morale-boosting visit to the 101st Airborne just before the invasion," she casts aspersions on "the Left" and their willingness to do what it takes to protect democracy.

I decided to write to her...

In "Hollywood@War", you wrote:

"The Allies were expecting paratrooper losses of up to 70 percent, a sacrifice considered necessary in giving ground forces every advantage to make the world safe for democracy. (You can imagine the yelps of protest from the Left today, were an American leader to use that phrase in planning a D-Day-scale battle against Islamofascists.)"

First of all, I believe that a great deal of the country -- regardless of political leaning -- was supportive of the attacks against the terrorist camps in Afghanistan as they were a logical step from the events that occurred on September 11 to making "the world safe for democracy."

In Iraq, the United States has been the aggressor. If protecting the United States from terrorist attacks was indeed Bush's goal in attacking that country -- oh, no... wait, there were "weapons of mass destruction" there that he was going to eliminate! -- he would have poured the hundreds of billions of dollars (and thousands fewer lives) into the protection of this country's airports, train stations and other points of ingress WITHIN our country. Bush's reasons have nothing to do with ridding the world of evil dictators, spreading freedom and democracy or finding "weapons of mass destruction." I know it and *you* know it. Just like your President, however, you'll never admit it... you'll continue to mutate your reasons using one jingoistic phrase to another.

In your indiscriminate slam at "the Left", you failed to consider -- and make note of -- the fact that Germany was an uncontained aggressor; countries in Europe (and eventually the United States) were in real danger of being attacked by the Nazi war machine. Saddam Hussein, evil though he may be, knew the fate he faced had he considered attacking his neighbors -- particularly once no-fly zones were established after the first Gulf War.

His aggression against Kuwait, the springboard for that war, was entirely preventable but as you are probably well aware, the first Bush administration essentially gave Saddam the green light to attack Kuwait. In her meeting with Saddam onJuly 25, 1990, Baghdad/U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie's told him: "We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960's, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."

To compare Mr. Chetwynd's filmmaking techniques with "Saving Private Ryan" is one thing, but to compare the conditions of World War II with the conditions of the war in Iraq are ludicrous at best. Then, the United States defended itself and the countries of Europe because it was the right thing to do. Now, the war in Iraq has been -- and continues to be -- merely the Right thing to do.

You did make one good observation, however, in referring to another writer as your "fellow hack"!